Government and Rebellion eBook

Our revolution of ’76, and onward, was not a
rebellion; it was resistance of oppression, of burdensome
taxation without equal representation, and it resulted
in our distinct nationality.

The revolutions of France have been of a similar character;
they have sprung from oppression of the most severe
and unnatural kind. This was the fact, at least,
in 1797 and in 1830. In 1848, when it was my lot
to be in the midst of it, the revolution arose from
the selfish conduct of Louis Philippe, who enriched
himself and his family out of the national treasury,
and encouraged his sons in a course which was at war
with national precedent, with the commercial interests
and democratic individualism of the French; for with
their imperial prestiges and tastes they are extreme
in their personal democracy.

But all these revolutions resulted in good to the
people. Education, public spirit, enterprise,
labor, all the arts of civilization, and even evangelical
Christianity received a new impulse. Mind was
opened and enlarged; the people thought for themselves,
and sighed for knowledge and a better faith.

Revolution is going on silently, from year to year,
in England. The nobility yield by slow, almost
imperceptible degrees, to the demands of the people.
It is by this process that the Government avoids the
shocks which startle Austria, France and Italy.

Such is the variety of honest opinion among men on
all subjects; so different are the degrees of information,
and the opportunities of judging with regard to the
best measures of government; such a diversity exists
in the interests and abilities of a people,—­that
they may be good citizens without being satisfied
altogether with the constitution, or with those who
administer its laws. There will be different political
parties. It is the glory of a government that
the people are allowed to think and vote as they please,
and to express their honest opinions. Perhaps
with us, expression is too free, especially in regard
to public men and measures. We may have diverse
views and convictions, and yet feel and act loyally.
But men who endeavor by any influence or means to lessen
the loyalty of others, to alienate the love of the
people from the government, and who signify their
own aversion, not by condemning a single statute and
seeking its lawful repeal, but by heaping abuse on
the constitution and on those who are chosen to administer
the laws, by avowing their hostility to the government
and its policy, or their purpose to resist and war
against it,—­are in a posture of rebellion.
Those who, being in office, commanding the arms and
other property of the government, cause them to be
removed so as to weaken its power and strengthen those
in actual rebellion, or who are threatening the same;
those who aid and comfort a population or soldiery
who are in a state of actual resistance, and finally,
those who do openly and avowedly renounce the authority
of the government to which they have sworn allegiance,
or take up arms to attack its strongholds, seize or
destroy its property, or injure the soldiers and citizens
who are sent to protect it,—­are in a state
of rebellion against its laws and against the commonwealth
over which it holds the shield of its authority.